Buffy continues in the top spot, while a double-shipping Walking Dead takes second and third places. Turtles creeps back up to fourth, and Star Trek/ Legion of Superheroes gets off to a very promising start. Further down, Orchid benefits from a rock star contributor, Garth Ennis & John Byrne launch new titles and a remarkable success story finishes off the month.

This month everyone wants to know how DC’s New 52 has affected the sales of everyone else’s books. It’s a little too early to tell, the re-charting DC books have pushed a lot of indies off the charts, but while the indie publishers have a lot less titles charting this month, their market and dollar share have only dropped a little, suggesting that sales are up overall. The next three months will show the effects far more clearly.

Only 87 indie books charted this month, down from last month’s high of 127 and again the number 87 book sold around the same as the number 87 book last month. The bottom book sold 5,167 compared to last month’s 3,341.
In total those books sold approximately 921,878, well down on last month’s 1,053,116. That said, last month the average sales were 8,292 per book, this month it’s 10,596. As usual, UK and European sales from Diamond UK are not reported in this chart.

A look over the sales seem to suggest that the better-selling books have weathered okay, but a lot of books further down the charts have suffered serious drops, with retailers maybe choosing to spend their re-stock money on DC books rather than indies.

This month Image were the number three publisher, with 4.49% dollar share and a 3.98 market share thanks to two issues of Walking Dead, followed by Dark Horse with 4.44% dollar share and 3.28% market share, IDW with a 4.00% dollar share and a 2.97% market share, Dynamite with a 2.81% dollar share and a 2.42% market share, and Boom with 1.68% dollar and 1.02% market share. All but Boom slightly down on last month, but with way fewer titles, a very positive sign.

After skipping a month, Walking Dead ships twice in near equal numbers, and it’s pretty much stable. We’ll see over the next couple of months whether the TV show pumps these figures even higher, certainly the book sales have picked up. The new hardcover, volume seven, charted at number 2 on the graphic novel chart, with sales of 4,674, the Walking Dead Survivors Guide charts at 7 with sales of 3,333, and all of the rest of the trades chart as well.

That’s an excellent debut for what could be a slightly hokey cross-over, only a little below what Legion was selling before the relaunch, when retailers would have been placing their orders for this, and well above the Star Trek ongoing. It’s had a second print as well. At least some of the interest might be down to the return of long-time Legion artist Jeffrey Moy.

That’s a really small drop at this point, it seems to be finding its level quickly. It wouldn’t surprise me if sales actually increase from here, It’s been pretty good and is a much better match to Buffy than the IDW version was.

This launches well below the sales of the last series, which launched with 40,383. But that’s okay, because the last series shipped a long time ago (see what I did there) way back in November 1998, before the prequel trilogy had a chance to destroy many fans obsession with the series. These are actually very good numbers, 50% or so higher than the next Star Wars book on the chart.

124. Orchid (Dark Horse)
10/2011: Orchid #1 -18,942

Written by Rage Against The Machine guitarist Tom Morello, which seems to have pushed it to a very good debut. This issue was only a dollar, which no doubt also helped.

Not a bad second issue drop, but still in retailer orders rather than sales. This will be an interesting one to watch over the next few months, as it’s likely to benefit from these rumoured extra sales that the DC books are bringing in.

Less of a second issue drop than the last series, but it had had less of an increase as well. That said, it’s not far behind where it was a year ago.

191. Stitched (Avatar)
10/2011: Stitched #1 - 10,949

Garth Ennis’ fourth book on the chart this month, a mix of his two favorite genre’s, horror and war. He’s trying to make a film of this story himself, and has already directed a ten minute teaser, which was available with a variant of this issue.

Surprisingly this issue ticks up a bit, I would imagine that’s due to Eliza Dushku’s character Echo finally joining the storyline. Wasn’t that a slightly weird decision to make, to leave the show’s main character out of the first 4 issues? I guess it’ll work better in the collection.

All of the GI Joe titles appear to be finding their level, and Real American Hero even gets a small increase. The first collection of the main title charted at 92 with sales of 935 copies, which doesn’t sound like a great number.

Still creeping up, it appears that Sonic has held more of the gain the anniversary issue conjured up than previously thought. This is one that is likely to benefit from the DC books, we’ll see over the next few months. The sixteenth collection charts at 26 with sales of 2,025.

The final issue of this mini-series, not really bad numbers and apparently good enough for another mini-series of one-shots about Godzilla’s foes. Simon Gane’s drawing one of those, which should be splendid.

A really fun new book, it’s sold-out and gotten a second printing. With an art style somewhere between Cory Walker and Rafael Grampa and darkly slapstick sense of humour I think this will do quite well.

Shedding sales fast, as Kirkman seems to have trouble recapturing the success of Walking Dead & Invincible again. Dunno why, but none of his books since then seem to be able to stick around, despite most of them being pretty decent.

255. Last of The Greats (Image)
10/2011: Last of The Greats #1 - 7,338

Written by Joshua Hale Fialkov, this seems to tread similar ground to the likes of Irredeemable, but takes it into an interesting direction. Not a bad start.

This probably hasn’t got much more rope, hopefully the upcoming crossover with Irredeemable will pull sales up a bit. The fifth collection charts at 29 in the GN chart, with pretty decent sales of 1,854, so as with Irredeemable, this is making more in GN sales than in comics.

Badly harmed by both the ridiculous schedule, with four issues that took twenty months to come out, and the overall feeling that Ellis was just randomly chucking out some of his ideas that he couldn’t fit into other projects.

It looks like retailers massively underestimated this one, with remarkable sales growth. It’s only by fluke we know that, issue two was the number 300 book back in May, and the first issue only charted in January at 289 because of the lowest monthly sales in years.

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All figures on this chart are estimates for comics sold by Diamond to direct market retailers. They include reorders that shipped in the same month. Books shipping in the first week of a month will have more time for reorders to appear than ones shipping in the last week of the month, when reorders will slip to the following month.

Heidi MacDonald is the founder and editor in chief of The Beat. In the past, she worked for Disney, DC Comics, Fox and Publishers Weekly. She can be heard regularly on the More To Come Podcast. She likes coffee, cats and noble struggle.

My kids had me add Sonic the Hedgehog to the pull list. After watching the “Underground” series on Netflix and they really got into the character. They also really loved the Free Comic offering from last year. Since the last storyline was billed a jumping on point, my retailer put one out on the shelf. We grabbed it and they’ve been hooked.

My order for Orchid was based more on the $1 price than the writer. As it was, I ended up selling 70% of my order to another retailer to get them out of my shop.

At this point, BPRD is “subscriber only” at my shop, except for each new #1, which gets a copy on the shelf to remind people we get it. If it sells, I order an extra #2, and so on. If it doesn’t sell, then at least I didn’t lose too much on it.

Severed had a good conversion rate from American Vampire fans. I look forward to selling the TP to Snyder’s new Batman fans.

Re: Cold War- Remember when Byrne could boast about his “faithful fifty thousand?” It’s more like a faithful five thousand now. His quality doesn’t seem to have been diminished, so did all those fans leave comics entirely?

With the CBLF Annual, in past years I’ve ordered a stack of them “for the cause” and not worried about the sales. This year I just ordered what I could sell (about 20% of what I ordered last year), and sent them money directly “for the cause” instead.

I still enjoy John Byrne’s comics, but it’s not a must-have. (His Star Trek Aliens mini-series was quite enjoyable; his ability to render caricature, strange aliens, and technology made him the perfect choice.) I prefer the trades to single issues.

Most of the titles I read above, I prefer to get the trade, as the stories are worth keeping on a shelf.

Re: Morning Glories: “The drops are accelerating again, as it appears that last month’s sales were slightly boosted by the twelfth issue anniversary”

Haha. I’ll have to check out The Strange Talent of Luther Strange and Savage Sword. I gave them a brief look when their respective first issues came out but then forgot about them. Super Dinosaur is the only book my girlfriend buys so it’s too bad it’s not doing so great. If it gets cancelled I’ll be going to the comicshop by my lonesome.

Brian Jacoby: “With the CBLF Annual, in past years I’ve ordered a stack of them “for the cause” and not worried about the sales. This year I just ordered what I could sell (about 20% of what I ordered last year), and sent them money directly “for the cause” instead.”

That sounds like a good idea/alternative. The annual this year didn’t grab me but it did remind me to donate.